


Flying Blind

by whitchry9



Series: no more vacations, like, ever [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blind Character, Bombs, Canon Disabilities, Coffee, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Explosions, Fluff, Gen, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Ridiculous, Vacations, sam wilson is not appropriate supervision, stupid jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After procuring Sam as their supervision, Matt, Clint, and Natasha head to Venice, Italy.<br/>It's great, until the tiny matter of a bomb. Whatever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Blind

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize to Italy.

“Italy,” Natasha told them, tossing the brochure onto the table. “Venice, specifically.”

Sam grabbed it, seeing as how no one else seemed to want to. “And why are we going?”

She smiled at him. “Because it's my turn.”

“And I'm coming because?...”

The lawyer, Murdock, sighed. “Because Fury won't let us go anywhere on our own anymore.”

Clint nodded seriously. “The last two times Matt and I went anywhere, we ended up either getting arrested or deported.”

“We were not deported,” Murdock, or Matt, whatever, hissed. “They asked us to leave, nicely.”

Clint snorted. “Your version of 'nicely' is rather different than anyone else's.”

“We came to an agreement,” he corrected. “But the agreement included us never returning to Australia.”

“You guys got yourselves banned from Australia?” Sam asked. There had to be a great story there.

Clint waved a hand. “Eh, only sort of. But what do you say? Italy is supposed to be pretty awesome.”

“And you need me to come or else Fury won't let you go.”

Natasha nodded.

Sam considered it.“Right. So I'm like, your babysitter?”

Matt shrugged. “If you'd prefer, you can think of yourself as our handler.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah. That's better. Can I bring my wings?”

Behind his sunglasses, Matt frowned. “Wings?”

“Yeah, bring them,” Natasha said.

“Sorry, _wings?_ ” Matt asked again.

Sam glanced at him. “Yeah. I'm Falcon. You know, the whole thing in DC not long ago. I was the flying one.”

“I don't watch much tv,” Matt said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Sam shrugged. “They're wings. I wear them, I fly. Unless super soldiers grab me with their super arm and pull me back down.”

“Definitely bring them,” Clint chimed in. “I like being caught when I jump off things.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, and Matt smiled slightly.

“Don't always count on it,” Sam retorted, but he smiled too. “So. Venice?”

“Venice,” Natasha agreed. “You've got two hours to pack. Starting... now.” She snapped her hand down as she said it, like starting an imaginary race, and everyone took off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You're telling me you didn't know any of this going in?” Fury demanded.

Sam hung his head slightly. “No sir,” he sighed.

Fury laughed then, a sound that was apparently shocking to everyone in the room, because they all looked horrified.

Sam was mostly amused.

“Oh my god,” he said finally. “Keep going,” he chuckled. “I can't wait to hear the rest of this.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Two hours later, everyone was on the plane. Natasha was flying, and Clint, Sam, and Matt just got to sit back and relax.

“Nat never lets me fly anymore,” Clint pouted.

“Because last time I let you drive you crashed into Midtown.”

“That was Loki's fault!” Clint protested. “It was an alien invasion!”

Matt smirked at Sam, and he smiled back. The two of them really were like an old married couple, even though they'd assured him multiple times that they were not in that sort of relationship.

Still, it was apparently helpful for when they were undercover.

“Deal with it,” Natasha replied flippantly, and turned the small plane sharply.

“Uncle, uncle!” Clint pleaded. He looked a little pale.

Natasha levelled the plane, and Clint looked sullen.

“I love you guys,” Sam declared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“While this is fascinating, can we get to the part where you destroy Venice?”

Sam raised an eyebrow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“This is... really great,” Sam admitted, admiring the view. He knew that Venice was supposed to be gorgeous, but seeing it was something else entirely.

The airport was just next to the city, and even when landing, Sam could see how beautiful it was. Being on the ground didn't diminish that.

But the city wasn't entirely water. Sure, most of what would be the major roads were canals instead, but between buildings there was ground to walk on. The streets were more like alleys, with the building pressing closely in on either side for many stories. There also seemed to be no clear layout, streets doubling back on themselves, curving around to where they began. A lot of them seemed to end when they hit a canal.

 

Matt seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing.

“I prefer jumping off buildings to walking on water,” he grumbled.

Natasha patted him on the back. “My choice, remember?”

He sighed. “Yes, but that doesn't mean you have to take me to what is becoming one of my least favourite places in the world.”

“And you've been to Latveria,” she pointed out.

“I said one of, not my very least favourite.”

Natasha smirked. “Well, it's one of my favourites, so you're going to have to deal. Come on,” she beckoned.

Sam frowned. Natasha was heading in the opposite direction than he'd been expected.

“Aren't we going to go to...” he glanced back at the brochure Natasha had first thrown at him. “St Mark's Square?”

She snorted at him. “Tourist. No, come on. We've got better places to go.”

Sam shrugged. Natasha did seem to know what she was doing, so he'd follow her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Well, that was a mistake. Not your first, and certainly not your last, but Mr Wilson, if I can give you a word of advice. Never trust Agent Romanoff. Continue.”

Sam could have corrected him with regards to his title, but he figured he was on thin enough ice as it was.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“This looks... sketchy,” Clint noted, squinting at the signs around them.

Sam was fairly certain he didn't know Italian, or at least know how to read it. (Although Natasha had once told him that Clint knew how to say 'Can I pet your dog' in at least 16 languages, at last count. She knew how to apologize for him in all of them.)

But he had to agree. Natasha had led them for what seemed like hours, and Matt seemed to only grow more uneasy as time went on. His hand kept drifting to his left thigh, where Sam assumed he had a weapon. That was one of the perks of having their own plane. Far less security. Of course, Sam was fairly certain Natasha would be able to get at least three of her knives and two of her guns into anywhere her heart desired, but he doubted that the rest of them would be so lucky.

His wings were still on the plane though, because he figured he'd look more than a bit foolish wearing them. He'd have to get on Stark about that, making them small enough to wear as a normal backpack. As they were, they could only be hidden by the sort of backpack that would make him look like he was heading on a month long trek through the jungle or something.

Not good for wearing around Venice.

“Oh, calm down Clint,” Natasha huffed. “I come here all the time. Best iced coffees I have ever had, period.”

She led them into a tiny shop that was hidden at the corner of a square. Despite how hard it was to find the place, it was packed, standing room only.

She ordered for them in what sounded like flawless Italian, not that he would be able to tell.

 

“This is... really good,” Clint said, sounding shocked.

“Of course it is,” Sam retorted. “Half the time you drink your coffee out of the pot.”

“This is real coffee,” Natasha added. “Matt, what do you think?”

“Crap,” Matt muttered under his breath.

Sam frowned. “Really? I didn't think it was that bad.”

Natasha looked about ready to kill him. “I know that your senses are strong, but if you can't handle your coffee-”

“No, it's not that,” he corrected. “It's something else.”

“What?” she asked flatly.

“I assumed it was just the area. But I can smell trinitrotoluene and nitroglycerin, which are both-”

“Bomb ingredients,” Clint finished for him, sighing.

“Yes, but it could have been a number of different things.”

“So why the sudden panic?” Sam chimed in.

“Because ticking just started,” Matt finished.

“Aw, futz. Who the hell uses ticking anymore?” Clint moaned.

“Consider this a good thing,” Natasha pointed out.

“Right,” Sam said, with more authority than he actually felt. “Natasha, Clint, you two evacuate the area. Matt, do you think you can track down where the bomb is with your... I don't even know, super senses or whatever?”

Matt frowned. “Possibly. What's the plan?”

“I know bombs. If this one is legit ticking, then it was made by an amateur, which meant it had to be set off manually. There would have to be time for whoever to make their escape, which means there's time for us to find it and disarm it.”

“Good luck man,” Clint muttered, before being dragged off by Natasha.

“Coms on!” she yelled after her, before switching to Italian.

“Okay,” Matt said, sounding less than convinced.

“I've disarmed bombs before. I got this. Can you follow the sound? And the smell maybe?”

He shook his head. “Not by scent. It's too diffused by now. But sound?” He cocked his head, glancing up at the sky with his sunglasses. “Yeah, sound I can do.”

He led Sam down a number of alleys, occasionally retracing his steps.

They ended in front of two nearly identical buildings, both looking abandoned.

“That's as good as I can do,” he admitted. “I can't narrow it down anymore. There are too many echoes, and I don't want to waste time searching through a building if it's not in there.” He sighed. “Sorry. So what's the plan? Help with the evac?”

Sam frowned, considering it. “How about you go in there, I'll go in here,” he suggested. “If one of us finds it, we call the other.”

Matt frowned, but nodded.

“Got your com?”

He pressed the tiny earpiece into his ear, and nodded yet again.

Sam set off for his building. “How's the evac going Nat?” he asked.

“Nearly done,” she replied, sounding nearly out of breath. “How are things on your end? Find the bomb yet? Because if you don't find it soon, I'd recommend cutting ties and running.”

“We've narrowed it down to two buildings,” Sam told her, peering in a corner of the room he'd began in. “I'm in one, he's in the other. I give it another minute, and then we're gonna make a run for it.”

“Found it!” Matt's voice announced in his ear.

“Scratch that. Where are you man?” Sam asked. “I'm on my way.”

“No, don't come in!” He sounded pretty panicked.

“Well how are we going to defuse it if you won't let me come in? Have you ever defused a bomb before?”

“Sam-” Nat began.

“Sorry, not now,” he said, and muted her channel. He turned his attention back to Matt, staring at the building he was in. And backing up, just to be safe. “If you're not going to let me come in there, you're going to have to defuse the bomb.”

“I... can't,” Matt protested.

“Yes you can, I'll talk you through it. Describe it to me. I'm flying blind here. Give me something to work with.”

Matt made a choking sound that could have been laughter. Who knows. Stress does strange things to people.

“There are a bunch of wires attached to what I think is a timer.”

“Okay, give me a second, and then I'll tell you which wire to cut. How many are there?”

“Umm... four, no, five of them. Five wires.”

“Okay, is there one battery or more?”

“Two batteries. I think,” Matt muttered.

“Okay, five wires, two batteries. Got it. Okay Matt, cut the red wire.”

“I...” he faltered.

“Cut the red wire!” Sam demanded.

“I don't know which one it is!” he yelled back.

Sam felt like he'd been slapped. “Are you... colour blind? Okay, um, there should be a white, red, blue, yellow, and green, so try the...”

“No, I'm not colour blind,” he bellowed. “I'm completely blind. Wow, did you seriously not know this?”

Sam really felt like he'd been slapped now. “Wow. This is... wow. Um. This is actually kind of hilarious now that I think about it, but now isn't the time... oh shit, how long is left on the timer?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Matt growled.

“Oh right, sorry.” Sam scratched his head. “Bail man. Bail now. Run. It could go off any second, and I don't want you to be in the middle of that.”

“Don't have to tell me twice,” Matt muttered, and Sam could hear he was already running away.

“Blind,” Sam repeated. “Completely blind?”

“Still not the time,” Matt muttered. “But yes, ever since I was-”

He was cut off by an explosion.

“Matt? _Matt!?_ ”

There was no response.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So you blew up a building in Venice because you sent the one man in to defuse the bomb who couldn't do it.”

Sam bowed his head. “Yeah,” he sighed.

“Oh man, this is priceless. Keep going. We all know he survived, but it's not nice to leave us on a cliff hanger like that.”

Fury gestured with his hand, and Sam complied.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Matt said, when they found him, buried under a superficial pile of rubble, was “Oh god, I'm blind!”

Clint dismissed him with a hand. “Aw, he's fine.”

Sam examined him with a more critical eye.

“Are you fine Matt?” he asked him, scanning him for injuries while trying to keep him from getting up.

“No, seriously guys, I can't see anything. The explosion messed with my hearing.”

Sam hesitated. “I don't get it.”

Clint sighed. “He has this sort of radar sense to make up for being blind. But I think a lot of it depends on his hearing. No hearing, no radar. He's now pretty close to being actually blind.”

“Ah,” Sam said.

Matt continued struggling against Sam's arms holding him down. Attempting to anyway. The guy was strong.

“Right, well, you should really just not move and wait until an ambulance gets here to take you to the hospital, but I have a feeling that's not how you roll.”

“Are you guys there?” Matt asked, his hand wandering around in front of him. One landed on Sam's shirt, travelled up to his face, and dismissed him. He found Natasha next, and apparently recognized her.

“Natasha? What's going on?”

Natasha rolled her eyes and sighed. “Does anyone have paper and a pen?”

“You can have my brochure,” Sam offered. “Not like it's getting much use.”

Natasha accepted it with a nod. “Actually, I just need something with a pointed end. It doesn't have to make marks, just indents.”

Clint offered her a splintered piece of wood, and she frowned at him, but accepted it.

She scrawled a quick note on the shiny pages, and passed it to Matt. His fingers ran over it.

Sam wondered what she wrote.

He sighed, and handed it back to her.

“Fine, whatever. I've always wanted to experience the Italian healthcare system. I mean, why not? Am I yelling? I feel like I'm yelling.”

“You're yelling,” Clint muttered.

Natasha simply took Matt's hand in hers and make the ASL sign for yes.

“Oh,” he said, this time more quietly.

 

It didn't take the paramedics, or whatever they were in Italy, very long to get there. The explosion was probably a factor. But Matt was packaged into a neat little bundle before he could even protest too much.

“Pay no attention to him,” Natasha told the (maybe) paramedics. “He's blind, and currently also deaf. You might want to check him for a head injury.”

“Of course, signora.”

Natasha smiled at him pleasantly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“And this is why I have a bill for a CT scan on my desk?”

“It was important to make sure he didn't have a brain injury,” Sam defended.

“And the rest of the charges were covered,” Matt added. “Strictly speaking, the CT was not a necessity, but if I'd had a brain bleed, surgery would have been needed right away not after we'd flown back.”

“I found the experience of being in a water ambulance enlightening,” Clint added.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I'll go,” Clint sighed when the (maybe) paramedics asked if one of them was going to accompany him. “I can always sign with him if it comes to that. Can I have the splinter?”

Natasha passed it to him without comment, and Clint shoved it and the brochure into his pocket.

He climbed into the tiny ambulance boat, looking not entirely certain about the whole thing, and the boat set off with sirens.

Sam really hoped there were no little boats in their way.

“If we had the wings, we could beat them to the hospital,” Sam mused.

“If we had the wings, you could have just _taken_ him to the hospital,” Natasha added.

“Nah, that would be too dangerous, even for the man without fear. Spinal injury, head injury...” He shook his head. “Not worth the risk.”

Natasha smirked. “Did you honestly not know he was Daredevil? Seriously, at least half of New York knows that by now. The blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen. Not ringing any bells?”

Sam frowned at her. “No. And there was nothing to indicate that he was blind-”

“He wore sunglasses on the entire trip here,” Natasha pointed out. “Including on the plane. _At night._ ”

Sam frowned. “I thought he was just... you know. Cool.”

Natasha snorted. “Oh god, you are ridiculous. Let me tell you about the time he invented a twin brother to hide his secret identity...”

She threw an arm over his shoulder as they sauntered down the narrow streets together.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Fury sighed, loudly.

When Sam looked up at him, he shook his head.

“It's nothing. Continue.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“My head hurts,” Matt groaned.

They were on the plane back home. Matt had been cleared by the doctors. No brain bleeds, no internal injuries. Just a lot of bruises, some superficial lacerations, and one hell of a concussion. His hearing was even starting to clear up, which was a relief.

“I'm not going to say you deserved it, but...” Sam trailed off.

“He's saying you did deserve it,” Clint clarified. “He's mad that you didn't tell him you're blind.” He made a sign that looked like he was hitting himself in the head. Matt snorted.

“I'm assuming you just made fun of me,” Sam sighed. “Any fours?”

Clint shook his head. “Go fish.”

Sam picked up a card from the pile. “Damn,” he noted, sliding the card into his hand.

“Matt, you got any sixes?”

The man shook his head. “Go fish.”

Clint grabbed a card from the dwindling desk. He huffed.

It was Matt's turn. He ran his fingers over each of the cards and paused before making a decision.

“Uno,” he declared, placing sets of threes, sevens, and jacks down. He still held a six.

“What the hell man!” Clint exclaimed. “That's not how you play, and I asked you for that six. Now give it.”

He snatched the card out of Matt's hand and slammed down his own set of cards.

“I don't have any cards left!” Matt chirped. “I win!” He beamed behind his sunglasses.

Sam set his head down on the table, slowly.

“I'm never going on vacation with you ever again,” he moaned. It was muffled, and they might not have heard him.

(Which was a mistake.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Damn right you're not,” Fury growled. “No more vacations, like, ever.”

Ignoring him, Natasha took Matt by the arm and helped him up. “I was thinking South America next, how about you?”

Matt hummed as they walked out together, Clint right on their heels, and Fury glared at Sam.

“Sorry sir,” he mumbled.

“You should be. Now go follow them. I don't like when they're alone together.”

Sam jumped to his feet. “Of course.”

“Just remember, he can't cut the red wire!” Fury called after him.

Sam scowled.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The coffee shop I mention is real, and is apparently very good, even if it is in the sketchier neighbourhood of Venice.  
> Also, there were differing accounts of how medical coverage worked for tourists in Italy, but mostly everyone agreed that emergency care would be covered. (And I wanted Fury to get a bill, so there.)  
> Boat ambulances are a real thing, and super cool.
> 
> All the cookies to whoever knows what sign Clint makes at the end.
> 
> (I've already written the fifth installment in this series, but sort of need to write the fourth one first. Oops. If anyone has ideas for places, feel free to let me know. This series promises to be long, and I'll need more ideas. I can't make any promises though.)


End file.
